Chill Factor: Actor Katlyn Carlson’s (AB’05) journey to Broadway

Illustration by John Jay Cabuay

By Susie Allen, AB’09 | The University of Chicago Magazine 

In 2015 actor Katlyn Carlson, AB’05, got an email from her agent about an audition for a new musical. The message described high school queen bee Chloe Valentine as “self-absorbed, crass, sexy, manipulative, and hilarious in her disregard for others.” Carlson’s reaction? “Sign me up.”

She didn’t know she was embarking on a project that would make her (as best she knows) the first person from her hometown of Eureka, Missouri, to perform on Broadway. Be More Chill follows a teenager who implants a supercomputer in his brain to gain popularity. It went from a small New Jersey production to an off-Broadway run and then a Broadway production that closed in August 2019. Along the way, the original cast album became a surprise hit, attracting a passionate online fan base.

Carlson, who played the lead in the film Holly Star (2018), told the Magazine about life on Broadway. 

Why were audiences so passionate about Be More Chill?

It has a pretty simple message about being true to yourself, recognizing that who you are is enough, and that outside influences, and sometimes the voices in your own head, are not steering you in the right direction. You have to love yourself.

I think that people, especially teenagers, were able to see a lot of themselves in any number of the characters.

Katlyn Carson (L) in “Be More Chill”. Images video Broadwaybox.com

How did it feel to be the subject of a such an intense fandom?

We were not ready for the insanity that crashed over us. We had a few fans who were asking for autographs in the original production, but then off Broadway, it was absolute pandemonium. We felt like the Beatles.

Read the rest of Katlyn Carson’s interview in the Spring 2020 Issue of the University of Chicago Magazine.